What an up-and-down month. In the midst of the bad, there is good, and the good is that this past week I signed a contract with indie publisher InkSpell to publish my debut young adult novel, The Obvious Game, in February 2013.
Which is in five months.
Indies! We move fast!
I'm actually thrilled about the pub date, even though it's coming up soon. February is Eating Disorders Awareness Month, and there have been so many people who have emailed me about themselves or their loved ones wanting to know what the hell is going on in that person's head and how to help and what to do if it's you, I decided to write a book about it. Only this one is more interesting than my story ... fiction means you can change the beginning, the middle and, best of all, the end.
Here's the beginning of my query:
"Your shirtis yellow."
"Your eyesare blue."
"You have tostop running away from your problems."
"You're tooskinny."
Fifteen-year-oldDiana Keller accidentally begins teaching The Obvious Game to new kid Jesse onhis sixteenth birthday. As she buries her shock about her mother's fresh cancerdiagnosis in cookbooks, peach schnapps and Buns of Steel workouts, Diana bothseduces athlete Jesse and shoves him away under the guise of her carefullyconstructed sentences. As their relationship deepens, Diana avoids Jesse's pastwith her own secrets -- which she'll protect at any cost. Will Diana andJesse's love survive his wrestling obsession and the Keller family's chaos, orwill all their important details stay buried beneath a game? Nothing is obviousin THE OBVIOUS GAME.
I'm building a pinboard for it on my Pinterest page. The Birthright of Parker Cleaves is the novel I'm working on next.
What will make or break The Obvious Game (and, not to overreact, but my chances for publishing Parker Cleaves and anything else) is the success of this novel. The deck is stacked in publishing, especially for unknown authors, so if you would be willing to talk about my book once it is available, I would be forever grateful. You don't even have to say nice things, seriously. You could even be all DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THAT SUCKY NEW NOVEL, THE OBVIOUS GAME? And I would actually be fine with it, because then that person might be all WHAT ABOUT IT SUCKS? And next thing you know, you're discussing my book. So seriously, there should be no fear here. You could hate, hate, hate my novel and I will still like you as long as you don't beat me over the head with it.
Because I don't want to spam or turn my blog into a marketing showcase, I've created this handy Google form that will forever live in the My Books page of this website. If you or anyone you know might be interested in talking about the novel, reviewing the novel, talking to teens about the novel, etc. etc., please pass along the link to this blog and ask the interested party to look at the form on the My Books page.
For those of you who know me in real life, have heard me speak at BlogHer or elsewhere over the past three years or have been hanging around here since 2009, you know this puppy is a long time coming.
So thank you in advance for reading me here at Surrender, Dorothy, and I hope you'll read and enjoy/discuss/talk about/pass along to a loved one The Obvious Game. I'll be mentioning what's up from time to time, but if you really want to be updated, please use the form above.
Never, ever, ever, ever, ever give up.
DJ Nibbles celebrates The Obvious Game!
